To make a Flemish Knot:
Secure a spar or toggle twice the
circumference of the rope intended to be rove through the eye; unlay the
rope which is to form the eye about three times its
circumference, at which part is placed a strong whipping rope
vertically under the eye, and then bind it taut up by the core if it is four
stranded rope, otherwise by a few yarns.
While doing so arrange six or twelve of the wood and exactly halve the number
keeping pieces of spun yarn at equal distances on yarns that have been
unlaid. If it is a small rope, sel
ect two or three yarns from each side near the
center; cross them over the top at a, and half knot them tightly.
So
continue till all are expended and drawn down tightly on the opposite side to that from
which they came, being thoroughly intermixed. Tie the pieces of
spun-yarn which were placed under the eye tightly round various parts,
to keep the eye in shape when taken off the spar, till they are replaced
by turns of marline hove on as taut as possible, the hitches forming a
central line outside the eye. Leave on a good seizing of spun-yarn
close below the spar, and another between six and twelve inches below
the first; it may then be parceled and served; the eye is served over
twice, and well tarred each time. As large ropes are composed of so many
yarns, a greater number must be knotted over the toggle each time.
The chief use of these eyes has been to form the collars of
stays, the whole stay in each case having to be rove through it, a very
inconvenient device. It is almost superseded for that purpose by a leg
spliced in the stay and lashing eyes abaft the mast, for which it is
commonly used at present. This eye is not always called by the same
name, but the weight of evidence is in favor of calling it a Flemish
eye.
Ropemaker’s Eye, which also has alternative names, is formed by
taking out of a rope one strand longer by 6 in. or a foot than the
required eye, then placing the ends of the two strands a similar
distance below the disturbance of the one strand, that is, at the size
of tile eye; the single strand is led back through the vacant space it
left till it arrives at the neck of the eye, with a similar length ‘of
spare end to the other two strands. They are all seized together,
scraped, tapered, marled and served.